Acting the impresario

A busy day in a way - no real walk at all, which is very unusual, but a lot of loose ends tied up so that I'll not waken up panicking for a bit. This poster was part of the early-morning fret - I always find myself running to catch the local paper's Tuesday deadline for Friday publication so that I can have an ad in a couple of weeks before, in this case, a concert by a Russian vocal ensemble I've been hosting here for about 15 years. 

I can well recall the first time we did it, after a letter came to the then rector of the church looking for a venue for the choir's tour; we agreed to make it happen and I've lost count now of the number of posters we've distributed, blurbs I've written, host families I've begged accommodation from. It's always rewarding , and it's always - and increasingly - exhausting.

The posters - and this is the very last one in my photo - were distributed in the town this morning, and surprisingly well received: I had a nagging fear that recent political developments might have put people off but no - one shopkeeper even expressed the opinion that we need more of "this kind of thing" to make people see the humanity beyond the headlines.

The rest of the day was taken up with Pilates, emailing the local paper, emailing Jurij the conductor of Voskresenije and entertaining the friend who came round and rescued us from Mr PB's phone, which had begun talking to him and wouldn't stop. He must have pressed something ...